Confidence Game

September 8, 2005

If you paid careful attention to yesterday’s press briefing with Scott McClellan, you might have picked up on the fact that FEMA Director Mike Brown and/or DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff might not be employed by the Bush administration much longer. It was subtle, but it was there.

Consider this surprisingly-tense exchange between McClellan and NBC’s David Gregory.

Q: Scott, does the President retain confidence in his FEMA Director and Secretary of Homeland Security?

McClellan: And again, David, see, this is where some people want to look at the blame game issue, and finger-point. We’re focused on solving problems, and we’re doing everything we can —

Q: What about the question?

McClellan: We’re doing everything we can in support…of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA…. We’re going to continue. We appreciate the great effort that all of those at FEMA, including the head of FEMA, are doing to help the people in the region. And I’m just not going to engage in the blame game or finger-pointing that you’re trying to get me to engage.

Q: Okay, but that’s not at all what I was asking.

McClellan: Sure it is. It’s exactly what you’re trying to play.

Q: You have your same point you want to make about the blame game, which you’ve said enough now. I’m asking you a direct question, which you’re dodging.

It devolved from there to the point in which Gregory said McClellan was being ridiculous and McClellan accused Gregory of personally engaging in the dreaded “blame game.”

Theatrics aside, McClellan had multiple opportunities to say Brown and Chertoff continue to have the president’s confidence, but he chose not to. Sure, McClellan didn’t say they don’t have Bush’s confidence, but if we take a look at the press secretary’s previous use of the phrase, the writing is obviously on the wall.

* In July 2003, when Condoleezza Rice was under fire for misstating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, McClellan said Bush “has confidence” in Rice and believes Rice is “one of…the most outstanding, National Security Advisors this nation has ever had. ”

* In February 2004, when DCA George Tenet came under fire for mistaken intelligence about Iraq, McClellan said Bush has “great confidence” in Tenet.

* In May 2004, when several lawmakers insisted that Donald Rumsfeld resign, McClellan said Bush has “great confidence in the job Secretary Rumsfeld is doing.”

* In November 2004, when CIA Director Porter Goss was facing criticism, McClellan said Bush has “great confidence in Director Goss and his leadership.”

* In December 2004, when Bernard Kerik proved to be a ridiculous choice to head the Department of Homeland Security, McClellan said Bush has “full confidence in his integrity.”

* In April 2005, when Tom DeLay was exposed as a corrupt thug, McClellan said Bush “has confidence in Leader DeLay.”

* In July 2005, when we learned that Karl Rove had helped leak Valerie Plame’s identity to the media, McClellan said Bush continued to have “confidence” in Rove. In fact, he did so twice.

The pattern is clear. McClellan has never hesitated to express the president’s “confidence” in a Bush ally when he or she is facing intense criticism. And yet, yesterday, when McClellan was given about a dozen chances to say the president still has confidence in Brown and Chertoff, he declined.

Someone is going to get fired.

Someone really ought to send this to a White House reporter and surprise McClellan with it. Deer in the headlights, I guarantee it.

  • Speaking of Rove, any news on the Fitzgerald investigation? Not to downplay the tragedy of Katrina, but it seems that the storm has accomplished what all the White House’s obfuscation could not in shifting the media’s attention elsewhere.

  • You must have awesome files, CB.

    You know, I really should back up my computer one of these days.

    That’s a great review of this White House’s confidence game.

    I just changed the name of the post to reflect the “confidence game.” I have no idea why I didn’t think of that.

  • More damning evidence that Brown and Chertoff are on the chopping block: Bush was spotted ordering two copies of the new childrens’ book “My Pet Scapegoat” from a D.C. bookstore.

    I think it is less about Bush’s confidence in Brown and Chertoff and more about absolving himself of guilt.

    I’m sure we’ll hear a “See, I fired him(them), aren’t I great!”

    If Bush wasn’t feeling the heat, these guys would get medals.

  • I just heard (Air America) Cheney, at the crime scene, saying that he and the president “has great confidence” in Brown and his accomplishments. I guess that means they won’t take the easy way out (throw Brownie overboard). Instead, they’ll take the harder path … waiting for the “free press” to tire of this story, now that FEMA has locked them out anyway.

  • ” Someone is going to get fired.”

    The problem is, it’s not Bush who will get fired.

    It’s not Chertoff and Brown who organized
    Homeland Security, emasculated FEMA,
    put all the emphasis on terrorism,
    put all our resources into the madness
    of Iraq and gave the rest of the federal
    budget away to the ultra-rich.

    Sure, Chertoff and Brown are incompetent
    hacks, like most of the appointees in the
    Bush adminstration, but it’s the top guys
    and their policies who need to go before
    the gaping holes in national security can
    be plugged.

    Heaping the blame on these two clowns
    could very well fool the American public,
    the media, and quell the criticisms coming
    from the Democrats, and that would be
    tragic.

    Remember the one about getting what
    you wished for. Calling for the heads of
    these two guys is not the solution, although
    it must be part of the solution.

  • I think this is, again, proof that the Bush handlers aren’t as slick as they (and the press, and way too many Dems) think.

    They could’ve wiped out the entire Sheehan affair with a simple invitation to come into the “ranch”house for a ten-minute tea break. They could’ve taken off enormous amounts of Katrina heat by throwing “Brownie” overboard right away. They’re not so bright.

    Wasn’t it in Sartre’s “The Flies” that it is revealed how power isn’t something objectively “out there” but rather something we create and nurtuer in our own heads? If we’d all realize Bush for what he is — a brain-ruined, spoiled frat brat who’s in over his head and handled by not-very-adept criminals and deviants — then his “power” wouldn’t amount to much.

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